Editor's note: This is an extremely insightful take on the current geopolitical struggle between the U.S. and Russia/China (as well as countries such as India, which are drifting into Moscow's orbit). We encourage you to read the entire article, but we've taken the liberty of highlighting some of the best parts.

As the Fiscal Year 2018 budget, and particularly its war component are floated, it has become clear that without continued, massive military spending, paid for with mass-produced electrons masquerading as money, U. S. GDP would collapse, taking the country’s financial and monetary systems with it. The nation, whose real economy has been hollowed out, for profit, by the Deep State plunderers, has become significantly reliant upon deliberately contrived wars and military tensions for its economic survival.

With systemic monetary risk now at an unprecedented level, intensified by a new, partisan, “politics of defeat,” scorched earth agenda being implemented by those displeased with the results of the 2016 election, there has never been a more dangerous time for people to denominate their wealth in unbacked, baseless, debt-drugged dollars.

The absolute last thing the Deep State, and particularly its Banking Division (the Bank State), can allow the people to figure out at this time is that there is a far more safe, secure and potentially profitable way for them to position their financial assets than dollar-denominated bank deposits: precious metals. A widespread movement into metals at this time would damage the Bank State and its umbrella organization, the Deep State, because their future profits require the control and progressive expropriation of the people’s money.

Therefore, a March rate hike is guaranteed, for three primary reasons. First, precious metals prices must be pummeled as much as possible, in order to scare uninformed people away from the easy, safe and logical financial refuge it provides. Even though the “rates up, metals prices down” reflexive reaction is absurd, it has been baked into the trading algorithms so that it will occur no matter what other factors might be in play when rates are increased. Strategic Deep State price fraud, which is perpetrated by internationally signaled, time-coordinated and algorithmic inside trading, ensures that metals prices can reliably be controlled. At least for now. When physical demand finally increases in a material way, the price fixing fraud will collapse.

Second, the Bank State must increase the incentive for people to keep their money in its institutions, while it pushes forward, as fast as possible, with its cash elimination agenda. Once cash is eliminated, the banks will no longer have to worry about bank runs, which would otherwise be historic when the monetary wheels coming flying off the thoroughly debauched system, an event we view as inevitable.

Third, the Federal Reserve System is now 100% politicized, and run by sneaky, die-hard political ideologues who lie about why they do what they do and what they really think. Those who run the Fed are despondent that despite implementing for eight YEARS an interest rate policy specifically designed to enable Obama to create a totally false illusion of economic “recovery” by massively increasing government spending with trillions of phony, deficit, zero-interest-rate “dollars,” the people saw through the economic lie and defeated the Fed’s next intended puppet, Clinton.

Yellen, Fischer and the other partisan Fed governors are simply not going to allow Trump to turn around, in a matter of months, an economy that the Deep State and the Fed have systematically been looting, at mind-boggling and astronomical profit to themselves, for the past decade. Nor are they going to allow Trump to bask in DJIA-record glory. Therefore, the power- and money-obsessed functionaries at the Fed and within the Deep State, who all totally buy into the scorched earth agenda, are going to bring down the economy and markets, even if it means that every single private pension fund and the net worth of every non-connected citizen collapses with it. They couldn’t care less about that, as we are about to see, because they will have a scapegoat for what they, themselves have wrought: Trump. The Fed, in league with many others, is now doing everything in its power to rig the 2018 mid-term elections, in order to live up to its Sole Mandate, which is the preservation of political power.

While we deeply admire what President Trump is trying to do to expose to the people and turn around the fake economy in which the nation is drowning, we believe the challenge of reversing, in the short amount of time available to him, decades’ worth of asset stripping, corruption and for-profit economic destruction is beyond extreme. And the constant political obstructionism he is up against, which is increasingly treasonous, might make the achievement of his worthy objective impossible.

With this as our backdrop, let us move on to the geopolitics of gold, which while it might seem abstract and removed, we believe is highly relevant to your personal financial situation.

Aside from being tedious, politicized and baseless drama, the ongoing demonization of Russia, particularly with respect to its so-called rigging of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, makes no common sense. But it makes perfect Deep State sense. It is about war-mongering, global destabilization, internationalized looting and the continued plunder of the American people, the for-profit enterprises in which the Deep State specializes.

We believe that there is actually a more specific reason for the demonization of Russia than the above, usual suspects. This is a case where one should not just follow the money; one should follow the gold.

For the past fifteen plus years, physical gold supplies have been like Lazarus: they keep rising from the Dead. Just when it appears that a serious supply-demand imbalance is about to precipitate futures market delivery problems and therefore increased prices, supply miraculously appears out of nowhere to alleviate the shortage and stabilize or depress prices.

This surprise supply has primarily come from sovereign central banks: for example, 1,500 metric tonnes from one-time sound money nation Switzerland; 600 from France; 430 from the United Kingdom (most at the bear market’s absolute low price of around $255.00/ ounce; central bank “genius” for all to see); 300 from Netherlands; 225 from Portugal; 240 from Spain; 180 from Venezuela and counting; 90 from Brazil. And the list goes on.

Each sovereign sale has produced needed physical gold at times of supply – demand imbalance, many of which have been critical. This has enabled the paper gold price manipulation fraud to persist without any failures to deliver or the need to set a true, as opposed to fake gold price. A delivery failure, even a minor one, would expose and terminate the Deep State’s enormously profitable price rigging fraud, and has therefore been prevented at all cost.

The Deep State’s overthrow of legitimate, sovereign governments has been another means by which needed gold supply has been injected into the pipeline. After Libya was overthrown, 143 tonnes of the nation’s gold disappeared. Dozens of additional tonnes disappeared from Iraq subsequent to its invasion.

Ukraine provides another example. Immediately after Neocon, Deep State functionary and State Department plant Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland launched the for-profit coup d’etat in Ukraine, 43 tonnes of the nation’s gold, worth $1.7 billion at $1,200 per ounce, were airlifted out of the country in the middle of the night and went missing.

(As a side note, it is worth mentioning that while the cargo plane’s exhaust was dissipating into the Ukrainian atmosphere, Vice President Biden’s storied son, Hunter, miraculously appeared on the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings, the largest private natural gas producer in Ukraine. Biden was joined by close friend Devon Archer, a lead fundraiser for by-then Secretary of State John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid. Archer is also the former college roommate and current business partner of Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz (an heir to the H. J. Heinz fortune). These two ascendancies to Burisma’s Board were curious, given that Biden and Archer had no natural gas production or Ukrainian business experience whatsoever, did not speak one word of Ukrainian and had never previously stepped foot in the country. This gives us better insight into the true nature of the Deep State’s murderous, gold-seeking and highly profitable coups.)

While the perfectly-timed materializations of sovereign gold have plugged the Delivery Failure dike at various critical moments, there have been two persistent demand problems that have bedeviled the Deep State’s designs: Russia and China.

China’s official gold reserves surged from 395 tonnes in Q2, 2000 to 1,838 tonnes in Q3, 2016. This number, impressive in itself, dramatically understates China’s actual, official gold reserves, which many well-informed analysts put at 5,000 tonnes, minimum. China’s official reserves do not include the thousands of additional tonnes imported into the country for the private sector during the same period.

While the Deep State routinely pummels the paper price of gold both to mint fraudulent profits on the futures exchanges and scare financially naïve western citizens away from it, the Chinese government urges its citizens to buy gold, which they do by the millions of ounces. The Chinese government knows what is coming, and wants its citizens to be prepared. Apparently, capitalism and communism have traded places, which will result in an exorbitant cost to the people of the west.

Remarkably, it increased by 508 tonnes from Q1, 2014 to Q3, 2016, alone. This occurred when Russian sanctions, which were intended to destroy Russia’s economy and currency, were in place. The sanctions were not only expected to halt Russia’s ongoing gold purchases, but also force them to sell some or all of their existing reserves in order to raise cash, which is exactly what Venezuela has been forced to do since early 2014.

Chess Master Putin went in the exact opposite direction, by dramatically increasing the nation’s purchases of gold. This was unexpected and has put the Deep State on the defensive. It had counted on fresh supply from Russian to keep the supply – demand balance in equilibrium, and to prevent the Delivery Failure dike from breaching.

One way the Deep State reacted to Russia’s unexpected, continued demand was to engineer the out-of-nowhere Indian rupee demonetization, which stripped the Indian people of the cash they have traditionally used to purchase gold. This plan was effective at reducing Indian gold demand in the beginning, but is now backfiring, just as the attempt to reduce Russian gold demand backfired.

If China and Russia continue to buy gold at current rates, the only way the Deep State’s paper gold price manipulation fraud can continue is if other sovereign gold reserves are put into play, or, if physical demand is somehow diminished. While the Deep State is pursuing both tactics, their options are shrinking.

Even though sovereign gold sale risks remain, the value of nations’ reserves at the current fake price of gold is absolutely meaningless when compared to their exploding debts.

For example, Italy’s 2,452 tonnes of gold are worth $95 billion at $1,200 per ounce; the government’s debt is $2.45 trillion. France’s 2,436 tonnes are worth about the same, $95 billion; it national debt is $2.44 trillion. The same situation exists in virtually every western nation. Therefore, even if these countries were to sell all of their gold, it would not buy them any meaningful or lasting fiscal or financial relief whatsoever. There has never been a more pointless time for nations to sell their gold, particularly at today’s fake price.

To further amplify this point, the United States is reported to own 8,133 tonnes of gold, supposedly the world’s largest stockpile. (We disagree; to us, the arithmetic is clear that China now owns more.) This is the equivalent of 261.5 million ounces troy ounces, or about 0.82 troy ounces per citizen. At $1,200 per ounce, the reserve is worth $314 billion. The nation’s actual, annual deficits are roughly $1 trillion per year, more than three times the value of the entire gold reserve. The nation’s existing debt and contingent, unfunded liabilities exceed $200 trillion. Therefore, the nation’s gold supply could only pay off 0.16%, or one sixth of one percent of the nation’s current obligations. If it has not already done so, the United States could sell every ounce of the people’s gold and it would not make one bit of difference to the nation’s fiscal situation.

The U.S. gold reserve has not been professionally, comprehensively audited since 1953. We will not go into the U.S. gold audit topic here, because it has already been well documented. You can find the details with a simple search, if you wish to learn more. But we would like to point out something that is not typically noted.

In order to create positive “optics,” the United States government consistently massages, manipulates and even totally misrepresents a wide variety of financial, economic and monetary statistics (such as GDP, unemployment, inflation, money supply, interest rates, retail sales and many others). These positive optics are viewed as being crucial to preserving confidence in the nation’s economy and fiat currency.

Accordingly, one would expect that if the United States gold reserve actually exists, physically and unencumbered, the government would go out of its way to prove and advertise it, in order to create the favorable optics it spends so much time and effort engineering about everything else.

Instead, they refuse to conduct a professional audit, invoking the truly ridiculous excuse that it would be too costly to do so. One specialist has estimated that a comprehensive, independent audit would cost $10 million, which is approximately 1 MINUTE of federal spending, literally. So the expense excuse makes no common sense, and arouses serious and legitimate suspicion about the true state of America’s gold reserve.

The foregoing factors help explain the intensifying demonization and scapegoating of Russia. The Deep State needs to prevent Russia from continuing to buy gold in quantity, and is therefore intensifying its efforts to damage the country’s reputation, economy and currency.

Based on these and several other factors, the Inferential Analytics model is signaling that there is a strong probability the Deep State’s gold price manipulation fraud is dying, and that the imbalance in physical gold supply is becoming systemic and reaching a point where it can no longer be bridged with sovereign, stolen or fake supplies. This increases the risk of futures market delivery failure. The occurrence of any significant endogenous event at this time, such as an unexpected military, social, economic or financial disruption, that provokes a further reduction in supply or even a modest increase in demand, would dramatically increase the probability of delivery failure and a resulting, necessary, sharp increase in the price of gold.

The fact that the paper gold price manipulation fraud is reaching the end of the line due to deteriorating supply – demand fundamentals is exactly why we are seeing a radical, concurrent Deep State escalation of the War on Cash. Cashlessness is the Deep State’s upcoming Looting Field, and is designed to replace Gold market price fixing as its next, organized, long-term method of plunder. The elimination of cash will result in the largest looting spree ever orchestrated by the Deep State.

Every time the Deep State hatches a new looting scheme, they dress it up in false righteousness, phony morality and motherhood. In the case of cash elimination, they say it is needed to fight terrorism, drug laundering, tax evasion and crime. This is a huge, concocted, pre-packaged lie; the same kind that Hitler and Goebbels used. Hitler said and proved that if you make the lie big, and repeat it again and again, the people will come to believe it. This is the exact kind of lie the Deep State is telling to push its corrupt, greed-diseased, epically evil cash elimination scam.

While the Deep State demonizes Russia to perpetuate its gold price fixing profit center for as long as possible, it is simultaneously building, as fast as it can maximum security prisons for the people’s money. For the bricks, they intend to use your cash; for the mortar, they are mixing a stinking amalgam of their lies, corruption and greed. We can be sure of one thing: if we allow them to imprison our money in their cashless prisons, they will grind it into oblivion by fees and fraud, and our financial slavery will become inescapable. Please, do not underestimate what is happening all around you, and use your current quasi-freedom wisely.

Stewart Dougherty is the creator of Inferential Analytics (IA), a forecasting method that applies to events proprietary, time-tested principles of human instinct, desire and action. In his view, forecasting methods not fundamentally based upon principles of human action are unlikely to be reliable over time. He is a graduate of Tufts University (BA) and Harvard Business School (MBA), is a 35+ year veteran of the business trenches and has developed IA over a period of 15+ years.